Welcome to Insight Eyecare Jenks with Dr. Haley Baldridge, your Jenks eye doctor. We are located on Main Street Jenks and are very excited about our newly renovated building. Your Jenks eye doctor has a wide variety of glasses frames to choose from, offers the highest quality of glasses and contact lenses, has a building full of new start-of-the-art equipment and technology, and is able to treat and manage several eye diseases. We would love to meet you and provide you with cutting-edge eye care to give you clear and comfortable vision.
Have you ever wondered why your eyes are dilated during an eye exam?
Your Jenks eye doctor has a passion for educating patients, and today would like to discuss the importance of a yearly dilated eye exam and why your eyes will be dilated at your Jenks eye doctor. While in optometry school we had our eyes dilated almost every day to practice our skills and become proficient at them. Here with your Jenks eye doctor you will receive a mild dilation drop at each annual visit and I would like to explain why.
When a bright light is shown inside of your eye, the pupil, the black part of your eye, will constrict, getting smaller, limiting the view the doctor has of the inside of your eye. Your Jenks eye doctor will use a mild dilation drop at your visit to paralyze the eye muscles that lie inside of the colored part of the eye, making the colored part of your eye open allowing the pupil to become large enough for the doctor to see inside of the eye with a 3D view. When the eye is dilated, your Jenks eye doctor can get a full view inside of your eye, at all of the structures, and give an accurate assessment of the health of your eye. Let’s compare a dilated eye to buying a house. Can you imagine buying a house by only by looking through the keyhole? When the eye is not dilated, your Jenks eye doctor has a limited view of the inside of the eye and cannot see all of the structures inside. When the eye is dilated, it is similar to the walk through in a house. Your Jenks eye doctor is able to see all of the structures inside of the eye with a 3D view in great detail, just as you would be able to see detail when you are able to look through all of the rooms inside of the house.
Through your dilated eye, your Jenks eye doctor can evaluate your optic nerve head looking for signs of glaucoma, swelling, and changes due to vascular disease. They can look at your blood vessels to monitor systemic diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. Through a dilated eye your Jenks eye doctor can evaluate the macula (the center part of the eye and the area of the eye which gives you your 20/20 vision) for macular degeneration and diabetes and assess the natural lens inside the eye for cataract formation to make recommendations for cataract surgery if necessary. Your Jenks eye doctor can assess the peripheral retina looking for retinal detachments, holes or tears. Not all eye diseases effect or cause changes to your vision, and through a dilated pupil, your Jenks eye doctor can catch these diseases and recommend different treatment options. If you have any of these eye or systemic diseases, call your Jenks eye doctor today for an appointment.
Most children have very strong eye muscles that lie inside of the colored part of the eye. These muscles allow them to focus and can often mask the child’s true prescription. This may mean that the child’s eyes are working harder than they need to be to keep things single and clear for the child. The child may complain of eye strain, eye fatigue, or double vision. The child may also have a difficult time staying attentive when the eyes get tired, causing them to act up in the classroom. When the child’s eyes are dilated, those strong muscles are paralyzed which allows your Jenks eye doctor to measure the child’s true prescription and prescribe glasses to help the child see more clearly and reduce the amount of work the eyes are doing if they are necessary.
Inflammation can occur inside of the eye if the eye is sick and allow white blood cells to seep out of the blood vessels that lie inside of the colored part of your eye. The muscles inside of the colored part of the eye also become inflamed in a sick eye which causes a lot of pain when they are constricting/dilating in different light levels. Your Jenks eye doctor can prescribe a dilating drop for you to use which will paralyze those muscles reducing the amount of white blood cells that seep out and also help your eyes feel better since the inflamed muscles are paralyzed and not being used.
Dilation often gets a bad rap, however, it is very important for the health of your eyes and is needed for several situations. Luckily, the dilation drops used at your Jenks eye doctor will only cause your near vision to be blurry for approximately four to six hours and will cause you to be light sensitive for approximately 2 hours. We will send you home with some very dark, disposable sunglasses to help keep your eyes comfortable in the bright lights.
I hope this article was informative and you were able to learn something. Be on the lookout for more articles explaining the importance of different steps during an eye exam, various eye disease that can be detected and treated during an eye exam, and how Dr. Haley Baldridge can take care of your eyes. Your Jenks eye doctor is looking forward to meeting you!! We would love for you to stop by and see the updated building, meet us and say hello. Call us today to schedule your eye exam! Have a wonderful day!